Operation Paravane was a British air raid of World War II on the German
battleship Tirpitz. The attack on 15 September 1944 by 21 Royal Air
Force heavy bombers did irreparable damage, rendering the ship unfit for
combat. A series of raids conducted from April to August by Royal Navy
aircraft carriers had sought unsuccessfully to sink or disable the
battleship at her anchorage in Kaafjord in the far north of German-
occupied Norway, encountering formidable German defences. In September,
Avro Lancaster bombers from two elite squadrons of RAF Bomber Command,
flying from an airfield in the Soviet Union, attacked using heavy bombs
and air-dropped mines. All of the British aircraft returned to base. The
Allies were unable to confirm the extent of the battleship's damage, and
conducted two further heavy bomber raids against her in late 1944 that
sank the ship with considerable loss of life.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paravane>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1831:
The John Bull, the oldest operable steam locomotive in the
world, ran for the first time in New Jersey on the Camden and Amboy
Railroad.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bull_%28locomotive%29>
1944:
World War II: American and Australian forces landed on the
Japanese-occupied island of Morotai.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Morotai>
1959:
Nikita Khrushchev began a state visit to the United States,
becoming the first Soviet leader to do so.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1959_Khrushchev_visit_to_the_United_States>
2008:
Financial crisis of 2007–2008: The global financial services
firm Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy while holding over $600
billion in assets, the largest such filing in U.S. history.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy_of_Lehman_Brothers>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
orphrey:
1. (obsolete) Any elaborate embroidery, especially when made of gold
thread; an object (such as clothing or fabric) adorned with such
embroidery.
2. (Christianity) An embroidered ornamental band or border on an
ecclesiastical vestment, altar frontal, etc.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/orphrey>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
To be part of something one doesn't in the least understand is, I
think, one of the most intriguing things about life. I like living. I
have sometimes been wildly despairing, acutely miserable, racked with
sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be
alive is a grand thing.
--Agatha Christie
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie>
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